Friday, September 26, 2008

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, by Jack Gantos - review

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, by Jack GantosYou know, this is the first of Jack Gantos's books that I have read. I never read Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, or Rotten Ralph, and, although I am tempted by Hole in My Life, I am pretty sure it's the kind of prison memoir that really only attains its full mind-bending potential when read by a person already familiar with the adult that this jailbird grows into. The adult that writes the kids' books, which one presumes are less, err, shank-y.

So I kind of figured that Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, shelved in YA and given a kind of Goth / Marcel Dzama cover, would be something of a middle ground.

...

And all I can say is, unless there were some VERY peculiar rapes happening in that medium-security detention facility, I think I dove into the deep end.

Don't get me wrong, I kind of love the book. Set in a claustrophobic Pennsylvania town and populated with several close-knit generations of German immigrants - heck, if those people were Magyars instead of Germans, that would be my grandfather's family. Brr.

There's taxidermy. There's meteorology. There's even a little poison. And there's incest, just a touch of it. And somewhere along the line, a bell went off in my head. Add a few dozen more characters and locations, and Love Curse of the Rumbaughs is The Hotel New Hampshire. This is not a bad thing, and not a dishonorable comparison, in my view. Makes it somewhat easier to review, too.

In the context of "YA novel," Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, a humorous novel that includes incest, is unprecedented and difficult to categorize. But in the context of, say, "John Irving novel," I am on firmer ground. I can say that in Jack Gantos's latest novel, his first work of fiction for a young adult audience, he explores love and secrecy, using the generations of the Rumbaugh family to play variations that are by turns appalling, funny, brave, and lonesome.

I am the pink-haired librarian who reads all the kid books

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Pink me?

I work in a public library; I handle the majority of the materials selection for two K-8 school libraries; and I have two kids of my own. I also have a REAL short attention span, so my pleasure reading is mostly juvenile and young adult books as well.

So when you're looking for a good book for a kid, come on over here and I'll pink you.

Hey: This blog discusses children's literature in adult terms. It is not a blog for kids.